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Alexandru Volacu

@volacu.bsky.social
164 followers 225 following 83 posts

Associate Professor at the University of Bucharest; Political theorist/Political scientist

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Alexandru Volacu @volacu.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
My new piece for Justice Everywhere (justice-everywhere.org/general/ince...), where I argue that paying people for democratic service could help with alleviating both the current democratic crisis and the possible AI-driven unemployment crisis.
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Alexandru Volacu @volacu.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Monday, 11 May, we are holding an international workshop on "Digital Democracy and Inclusivity", at the University of Bucharest (part of the PERYCLES project - perycles-project.eu). Program below:
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Dr. Émile P. Torres @xriskology.bsky.social · 17/03/2026
New article in which I argue that it's absolutely unacceptable and completely outrageous that the AI CEOs and founders are saying, out loud, that they might kill you and your family. This is true even if you think AGI isn't imminent or dangerous. But what do you think?
realtimetechpocalypse.com
Marc Andreessen Doesn't Introspect / There's No Collective Action Problem Driving the AGI Race / and All the AI CEOs Have Threatened to Kill You
(2,300 words)
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Cas Mudde @casmudde.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
"The other iron law of reactionary centrism – beyond the asymmetry that is hiding behind the seeming evenhandedness – is that only the left and liberals really have agency." Brilliant column by @jwmueller-pu.bsky.social
theguardian.com
Beware of ‘anti-woke’ liberals: they attacked the left and helped Trump win | Jan-Werner Müller
So-called ‘reactionary centrist’ pundits proclaimed that there was a global ‘vibe shift’ in favor of the right. They were wrong
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Nathan K. Hensley @nathankhensley.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
ah well at least we restructured the entire contemporary university, the product of many centuries of slowly accumulating human ingenuity, to boost this
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Alexandru Volacu @volacu.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
Application period for New Europe College (Bucharest) fellowships in humanities and social sciences: nec.ro/fellowships/... Especially if you recently got your PhD and are looking for a 1-year fellowship it is a wonderful place to work, with a scholarship that will completely cover expenses here
nec.ro
Apply for a fellowship : NEC
NEC Institute for Advanced Study
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Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
“Where are we now with AI?” “Well, we’re eating up the whole world in order to put a few million middle-ranking white collar workers out of work.” “Ah, progress is a wonderful thing!”
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Ken Klippenstein @kenklippenstein.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
New Tyler Robinson posts leaked to me tell a very different story than you've heard before: www.kenklippenstein.com/p/exclusive-...
kenklippenstein.com
Exclusive: Leaked Messages from Charlie Kirk Assassin
Accused shooter’s “politics” is not what government and media say
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Alexandru Volacu @volacu.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
My latest piece on Justice Everywhere, about the current and expected impact of Generative AI on an academic environment which puts research outputs at the heart of performance evaluation. Briefly, I think it's no longer sustainable, even in the near future. justice-everywhere.org/general/can-...
justice-everywhere.org
Can Our Current Academic Model Go On in the Age of AI?
It has been almost three years since ChatGPT was released in the public arena amid great hopes, worries, and, perhaps more than anything, hype. While artificial intelligence tools, including of the…
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Alexandru Volacu @volacu.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
Quick post for those interested in international politics. Round 2 of the Romanian Presidential Elections takes place on Sunday. The race pits a guy who did his PhD in Mathematics at Sorbonne against a guy who was nicknamed "Insane Asylum" by his colleagues. The latter is slightly ahead in polls.
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Alexandru Volacu @volacu.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
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Alexandru Volacu @volacu.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
This gem of a phrase could only be uttered by an American conservative (context: On R/Conservative, in a discussion about the recent Australian elections). Never change, MAGA, never change.
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Alexandru Volacu @volacu.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
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Frank Conniff @frankconniff.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Larry David telling Bill Maher to go fuck himself in so many words. Hilarious. Glorious. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Larry David: My Dinner With Adolf (Gift Article)
When a private meeting goes unexpectedly.
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Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
Those trying to understand the tariffs as economic policy are dangerously naive. No, the tariffs are a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief. 1/ A 🧵 to explain his plan and how we fight back.
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Alexandru Volacu @volacu.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
My new paper is out in Constellations. It's on democratic resilience and how we can draw on historical examples to think about its pursuit through contemporary institutional design. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
The Epistemic Challenge to Democratic Resilience: A Late‐Classical Athenian Institutional Solution
Democratic erosion is an increasingly worrying phenomenon, affecting not only both young and transitional democracies but also more consolidated ones. A particularly important aspect of this process ...
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Rebecca Fielding-Miller @rebeccafieldingmiller.com · 22/03/2025
Today I lost an NIH grant training clinicians to do research about intimate partner violence with perinatal women. More women are murdered in the perinatal period than die of obstetric complications. I didn't just lose a grant. We lost an entire cohort of people building careers to prevent that.
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Alexandru Volacu @volacu.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
Maybe it's a little hyperbolic, but my current feeling is that many people would be safer going to Syria, than the US right now. I had already made the decision of not travelling to the US if Trump is re-elected long ago, but still eerie to see this unfolding: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
theguardian.com
I’m the Canadian who was detained by Ice for two weeks. It felt like I had been kidnapped
I was stuck in a freezing cell without explanation despite eventually having lawyers and media attention. Yet, compared with others, I was lucky
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Alexandru Volacu @volacu.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
(continuation of previous thread) The motivation for barring Georgescu from running in the Romanian election has been published by the Central Electoral Bureau (BEC). Contrary to initial reports overviewed in my previous thread, the decision was taken on substantive, not procedural, grounds. (1/n)
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Alexandru Volacu @volacu.bsky.social · 09/03/2025
A brief update on what's going on in Romania, as there aren't a lot of us on Bluesky, but I know some non-Romanians may be interested and the international media doesn't always do a great job in presenting the facts. (1/n)
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Alexandru Volacu @volacu.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
Seems a bit egocentric to use social media to share one's work in these times, but I'll put this out there nonetheless. So my article on Free Riding and Compulsory Voting is now out (Ahead of Print) in Journal of Politics: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...
journals.uchicago.edu
Free Riding and Compulsory Voting | The Journal of Politics
This article addresses one of the most salient arguments for compulsory voting, according to which electoral abstention constitutes a type of free-riding behavior that the state is justified in mitiga...
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Vatnik Soup @vatniksoup.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce how the Elon Musk’s Election Interference Machine™ (EIM) works. Since Musk and his broligarch allies won the presidency for Trump, they’ve now harnessed the machine to interfere in European elections, including the ones in Germany and Romania. 1/23
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Justice Everywhere @justiceeverywhere.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
How to kill a democracy in 10 easy steps. Unfortunately a very relevant post by Lisa Herzog. "Always remember: exhausted citizens are submissive citizens. Or no citizens at all – at some point of sleep deprivation, they turn into subjects. That’s when you know you’ve won. "
buff.ly
How to kill a democracy in 10 easy steps (spoiler alert: exhaust your citizens)
This month we will be publishing a series of posts on the topic of fatigue. Two years after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, constant fatigue characterises the lives of too many of us. Here w…
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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
Of course it’s a coup. Miss the obvious, lose your republic. open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...
open.substack.com
Of course it’s a coup
Miss the obvious, lose your republic
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Daniel Cetrà @danicetra.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
🚨 Call for Abstracts! 🚨 The III Barcelona Workshop in Political Theory is now accepting submissions! 🏛✨ Join us in Barcelona on 19 June for a dynamic exchange on cutting-edge research in political thought! 📝Submission deadline: 15 March
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Tom Theuns @tomtheuns.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
Two 4-year salaried PhD positions in EU foreign policy at @polscileiden.bsky.social @leidensocial.bsky.social to work with my amazing colleague @karolinapomorska.bsky.social as part of the @ec.europa.eu funded EUFOG project. Share = 🙏
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𝙰𝚛𝚊𝚜𝚑 𝙰𝚋𝚒𝚣𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚑 @abizadeh.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
The Canadian public and especially political class should understand the US President is explicitly declaring economic war on Canada with the goal of ruining & then annexing it. This is not merely a tariff war and the political class shouldn’t treat it as merely that: Deal with the intent to annex.
Trump post: “Without this massive subsidy, Canada ceases to exist as a viable Country…Canada should become our Cherished 51st State.”
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Gabriel Zucman @gabrielzucman.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
The tariffs are mad; but what’s equally mad is that they somehow come as a surprise, when Trump has campaigned non-stop on this and controls all branches of government Precious time has been lost, but it’s not too late for countries to mount an effective response 1/x
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Critical Review of Social and Political Philosophy @crispp.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
Special Issue on Justice for Denizens, edited by Johan Olsthoorn is now on line, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: (2025) Vol 28, No 1 www.tandfonline.com/toc/fcri20/c...
tandfonline.com
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
Justice for Denizens. Volume 28, Issue 1 of Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
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Alexandru Volacu @volacu.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Here is my recent article on Justice Everywhere: justice-everywhere.org/general/envy...
justice-everywhere.org
Envy and Fair Burden-Sharing: There and Back Again
When should we say that two people are treated as equals from a distributive point of view? The straightforward response is that they are equal if they hold an identical bundle of resources. But si…
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Alexandru Volacu @volacu.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
I've removed myself from Twitter a few months ago due to Musk-related reasons, and given the deterioration of Facebook I'll give Bluesky a shot. Mostly here for academia and political theory-related stuff.
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